Comeback of Simon Poelman
Simon Poelman from New Zealand is now 40 years old. In 1998 at the Commonwelath Games he did his last Decathlon, last weekend at the Austrian National Championships in Reutte/Tyrol he started his first Competition after 5 years.
He looked like, he didn´t loose any of the fitness he had 5 years ago. His goal was to score a new M40 world record.
The official record shown by the WMA is a age-graded score of 7789 points by Wolfgang Linkmann (GER) scored in 1981. So a "normal" score between 6500p to 6600p would be equal.
Simon surprised himself by a 100 Meter time of 11,44s. In the preparation for this Decathlon he had some injurys that didn´t let him work too much on his speed.
After this good start he had bad luck in the long jump. Already in the warm-up he injured his hamstring. So he could only run slow and take off easy, but he could still manage 6,18m.
The next two events the injury did not bother him too much. He showed two very good results: 14,95 in the shot put and 1,91 in the High Jump.
In the 400 meters his second harmstring cramped also - he could only run slow: 58,38s.
Even with this problems, he had a age-graded score of +3900p after day 1.
But over night - no wonder - his hamstrings problems didn´t go away. So he had to quit, and could not run the hurdles. But he threw the discus to very good 41,95m and then watched the rest of the event.
That he had to quit his Comeback Decathlon was for Simon not really a big deal - too many more serious up´s and down´s he had already in his live.
His first international sucess he had in 1987 - there he placed 6th at the World Championships, an with his season best of 8366 points he was ranked 4th in the World-List.
In 1990 he was Second in the commonwealth Games behind Mike Smith.
In Götzis in 1991 he was on the way for a new big PR, but in the Pole Vault he could not jump his opening height. In Tokyo at the World Championships he could repeat his 6th place from 1991.
His last Competition he did in 1998 at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, where he placed 11th with 7425 points.
After this event Simon got into serious troubles, and it took him a long time, to find back to Athletics.
Now he lives with his girlfriend in Germany, and want´s to take a second approach this season to the Masters World Record.
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